Where does the word “gothic” come from?
That’s easy: history.
• Gothic just means: "of the Goths," Germanic
people who lived in Eastern Europe c.100 C.E.,
"pertaining to the Goths or their language"
• There were a number of Germanic tribes during
the height of the Roman Empire to about 800 CE
(Visigoths, Ostrogoth, etc.)
• They migrated all over Europe (Italy, Spain,
Germany, France) essentially sacking and taking
over.
• The term is taken in a used in sense of "savage
despoiler" (1660s) in reference to their fifthcentury sacking of Roman cities
• It evolved to mean anything Medieval German,
then eventually anything dark and Medieval.
Connection to the Gothic Novel
• Centuries passed before the word "gothic" meant
anything else again. During the Renaissance,
Europeans rediscovered Greco-Roman culture and
began to regard a particular type of architecture,
mainly those built during the Middle Ages, as "gothic"
-- not because of any connection to the Goths, but
because the 'Uomo Universale' considered these
buildings barbaric and definitely not in that Classical
style they so admired. Centuries more passed before
"gothic" came to describe a certain type of novels, so
named because all these novels seem to take place in
Gothic-styled architecture -- mainly castles, mansions,
and, of course, abbeys.
It also has to do with a type of architecture
that was immensely popular at the time of
the genre’s birth: Gothic Revivalist
How the word is used today:
It represents a contemporary subculture that
started in the 1980s – basically post punk.
Like most subcultures, it has its own set of
norms, fashions, musical tastes, and
intertextual links. While its heyday was the
1980s to 90s, the subculture persists today.
Fashion is
specifically
dark, and has
elements of
Elizabethan or
more
specifically
Victorian
elements.
Behaviour is
often
mysterious
and
There is typically an affection for art,
music, and
standoffish.
folklore that examines the same themes
and
topics as what is defined as Gothic literature.
Gender role are also usually more fluid than
mainstream society.
Gothic fiction is a genre of literature that
essentially combines horror and romance.
Gothic fiction plays on the interesting paradox
of a pleasurable sort of terror – the idea that the
frightening could be arousing.
Prominent tropes of Gothic fiction include
terror (psychological and physical), mystery,
the supernatural, ghost, haunted houses,
haunted landscapes, castles, ruins, graveyards,
abbeys, monasteries, dungeons, exotic foreign
(often Eastern European) locations, darkness,
death, decay, doubles, madness, secrets,
hereditary curses, and magic.
Gothic (goth-IK): a literary style popular during the end of the
18th century and the beginning of the 19th. This style usually
portrayed fantastic tales dealing with horror, despair, the
grotesque and other “dark” subjects. Gothic literature was
named for the apparent influence of the dark gothic architecture
of the period on the genre. Also, many of these Gothic tales took
places in such “gothic” surroundings, sometimes a dark and
stormy castle as shown in Mary Wollstoncraft Shelly’s
Frankenstein, or Bram Stoker’s infamous Dracula. Other times,
this story of darkness may occur in a more everyday setting. In
essence, these stories were romances, largely due to their love of
the imaginary over the logical, and were told from many
different points of view. This literature gave birth to many other
forms, such as suspense, ghost stories, horror, mystery, and also
Poe’s detective stories. Gothic literature wasn’t so different from
other genres in form as it was in content and its focus on the
“weird” aspects of life. This movement began to slowly open
may people’s eyes to the possible uses of the supernatural in
literature
Gothicism is part of the Romantic Movement
that started in the late eighteenth century and
lasted to roughly three decades into the
nineteenth century. The Romantic Movement is
characterised by innovation (instead of
traditionalism), spontaneity (according to
Wordsworth good poetry is a “spontaneous
overflow of powerful feelings”), (Neoclassic
and Romantic freedom of thought and
expression (especially the thoughts and
feelings of the poet himself), an idealisation of
nature (Romantic poets were also referred to as
“nature poets”) and the belief of living in an
age of “new beginnings and high possibilities”
The origins of Gothic Fiction
Funnily enough, Gothic Fiction started as a
joke, or a bit of a literary prank. The first
time it was ever used was in 1764. Horace
Walpole first applied the word ‘Gothic’ to a
novel in the subtitle – ‘A Gothic Story’ – of
The Castle of Otranto. When he used the
word it meant something like ‘barbarous’, as
well as ‘deriving from the Middle Ages’.
Walpole pretended that the story itself was an antique
relic, providing a preface in which a translator claims to
have discovered the tale, published in Italian in 1529,
‘in the library of an ancient catholic family in the north
of England’. The story itself, ‘founded on truth’, was
written three or four centuries earlier still (Preface).
Some readers were duly deceived by this fiction and
aggrieved when it was revealed to be a modern ‘fake’.
The novel tells a supernatural tale in which Manfred,
the gloomy Prince of Otranto, develops an irresistible
passion for the beautiful young woman who was to
have married his son and heir. It opens with this son
being crushed to death by the huge helmet from a
statue of a previous Prince of Otranto, and throughout
the novel the very fabric of the castle comes to
supernatural had discovered a fictional territory that
has been exploited ever since. Gothic involves the
supernatural (or the promise of the supernatural), it
often involves the discovery of mysterious elements of
antiquity, and it usually takes its protagonists into
strange or frightening old buildings.
18th Century Title Page:
There are also a number of “stock
characters” in Gothic fiction:
 tyrants, villains, bandits, maniacs,
Byronic heroes, persecuted maidens,
femmes fatales, monks, nuns,
madwomen, demons, magicians,
vampires, ghosts, witches, monsters,
dragons, angels, ghosts, skeletons,
the Wandering Jew, and even the
devil himself.
The Byronic Hero
Named after George Gordon, Lord
Byron – this type of hero isn’t your
typical Superman.
Byronic heroes are arrogant,
cynical, self-destructive,
passionate, rebellious, mysterious,
jaded, intelligent, charming, angry,
educated, sexual, and often
involved in an intense struggle
with integrity
They are often an outcast or an
outlaw
Here is a great example of one:
The main protagonist is usually a solitary character who has an
egocentric nature.
(males and females)
• Even though the genre is a phase in the Romantic movement, it
is regarded as the forerunner of the modern mystery or science
fiction novel – Frankenstein is actually considered the FIRST scifi novel!!!
The MAJOR classical gothic
novels:
Published in 1764, the story
follows a young woman in a
crumbling castle full of
(possibly) supernatural happenings
Published in 1820, the
story of a man who sold his
soul to the devil in
exchange for longer life.
Published in 1796,
follows a young girl
who is chased, raped,
killed, etc. by a tyrant in
a old castle
Romantic Period and Victorian Gothic
Common Thematics in the
Gothic
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Madness – fantasy vs. reality
The socio-economic pressures of succession
Dangerous knowledge/secrets getting out
Appearance vs. reality – family/country/death
Reason vs. Passion/Imagination
Rational vs. Irrational
The power of the past
**these are often allegorically represent other
social concerns, such as immigration, race,
class, gender, and industrialization.
Standard Literary Elements: Symbols,
Motifs, and Imagery
blood (literal and symbolic of lineages)
light and dark imagery
death and decay
portraits, paintings, pictures, galleries
overwrought emotion – melodrama – in action and in language
pathetic fallacy
traps, pursuit
supernatural or unexplained events
omens or visions of the future
prophecies, quests, curses
women controlled/oppressed by tyrannical males
haste, surprise, anger, fear, terror, sorrow
the past returning (either spirits raising from the dead, ancient customs persisting, or
memories lingering
metonymy of gloom and horror (wolves howling, ruins of buildings, chains rattling, etc.)
Contemporary Gothic:
The Gothic genre has returned in popularity
recently: TV shows like True Blood, The
Vampire Diaries, American Horror Story, The
Walking Dead, Supernatural, Bitten, Teen
Wolf, etc…lots of recent films (adaptations of
older stories like Dracula and newer one-offs
like The Last Exorcism, or The Woman In Black,
and as ever, novels like The Shadow of the
Wind, Let the Right One In, Perfume, or The
Night Circus. Where in any of these do you see
the tropes of the genre?